SEVENTH TALK l35
are committed after a period of deep depression.
That is so ; any student of criminology will tell you
that after a period of deep depression many a man
commits a murder, or suicide. He says: (< Such a
feeling of despair came over me, I felt I could not
help myself." Of course it would not be so among
ourselves, we know better than to give way to deep
depression, but remember that you are living in a
world not entirely peopled by Theosophists. There are
plenty of people in the lower stages of evolution who
would be affected in the above manner. Be careful;
you have no right to go about sowing mental and
emotional disease. Even if yours be a light case of
infectious disease, you do not know that the next per-
son's case might not be light, and that your depres-
sion may affect him in a very much worse way. It
cannot possibly do you any good ; it may not, I hope,
be doing you so very much harm, but at least you
may pass it on to some one to whom it may be ab-
solutely fatal. You must be careful. Merely to say :
u I ought not to be depressed," is often not enough
to pull you up out of the depths; I think the feeling:
^ I have promised to help others, I have no right
to be depressed," ought to be enough to get you out
of the deepest depression.
You will find this astral body constantly changing
moods. As I have so often told you, it does not
care what the vibrations are so long as they are
strong. Sometimes it pushes you on to be angry